Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Monday, July 27, 2009
Cross Town Concierge is now listed on BizHwy.com
We are now listed on BizHwy.com - free business listings and broker services.
Cross Town Concierge is now listed at FreeIndex.com
Cross Town Concierge is now listed at FreeIndex.com - an online business directory.
Sunday, July 26, 2009
CourierBoardDriver.com
I just discovered another great site called CourierboardDriver.com. This site allows you to post an ad to say that you are an available courier driver in your area. It also allows you to search for Courier opportunities. This site is just another potential marketing avenue for your courier part of your concierge business.
Saturday, July 25, 2009
New Courier Page
Cross Town Concierge roots started in the errand running service. Even to this a bug bulk of our business is in errands and courier services. To demonstrate our process and expertise in courier services I have added a new Courier Services page to our website (see new home page link and link in the service list page). We seem to be developing more and a regular client base asking us to deliver documents. We have regular clients asking us to deliver items either downtown or the Gold Coast. Our Bolingbrook location has several attorney clients and medical offices asking us to deliver items on a regular basis.
Friday, July 24, 2009
Cross Town Concierge Now Listed on Local.com Business Directory
Cross Town Concierge (Winnetka, IL) location is now listed on the Local.com Business Directory. Local.com has been added to our Links Page.
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Marketing Your Concierge Website Through Directories
Almost all concierge companies nowadays have a website. After all, a website is a must have for almost any service orientated business. Plus your website could be a great way to market your business. The thinking goes is to put up a website, put your web address on your companies basic marketing pieces like your business card, company stationary, invoices, and advertisement.
Making a website is a good start to market your business, but it is just a start. So what is the next step someone after the concierge website is put up? I think the best way to answer this question is to look at a concept introduced in basic Marketing 101, that is a concept called Target Marketing. To best demonstrate Target Marketing, I'll share with you a story often said by Dan Kennedy, author of the classic direct marketing book called The Ultimate Marketing Plan. In the book, Kennedy talks about a client who owns a carpet cleaning business. This client was frustrated because all of the direct marketing pieces he sent out resulted in dismal response rates. So the first question that Kennedy asked him was who are you mailing to? The client said that he just sent out direct marketing pieces to everyone in the surrounding neighborhood of his business. Then, Kennedy asked him how he decided to mail to that demographic.
"I don't know, I just picked the areas closest to my office," said the client.
Kennedy then asked him if he had you ever drove around the areas closest to the office? The client said that he hadn't. So they drove around the neighborhoods surrounding the office. It was an area filled with mainly apartments and condos - probably about 75% of the neighborhood in his market were tenants who rented. Plus after the quick drive, they both noticed that outside exteriors of houses needed painting and lots of yards needed maintenance. How could a area filled with this kind of demographic, need carpet cleaning services when they could hardly maintain their exteriors? The client agreed. So he changed his direct marketing efforts to better looking neighborhoods. The results were amazing. His direct marketing responses increased from 1/4 of 1% response rate from his old market area to a 2.25% response rate after he changed his target market to a different neighborhood. All of it just by changing the target market.
Likewise, when a concierge business puts up a website. All she is doing is putting up her website up in a web of 100 million other websites, targeting nobody, and maybe wishing somebody finds her website on a search engine.
There are lots of ways to get more hits on your website and to go completely into that is beyond the scope of this article. But one great start is to target your market. Remember, before the web, people picked up the Yellow Pages to find a listing they were looking for. Well, nowadays, people search the web to find what they are looking for. So what you want to do is put your website in a position so if a customer in your area is looking for a personal assistant or concierge, you want your business to pop up in their search.
A lot of people look for concierge company through a directory. What is a directory? A directory is just like the Yellow Pages print edition of the past, except now it's on the web. There is no one standard directory that everybody uses for concierge. So the plan is to put your concierge business in all the likely directories people use. Many of the directories are free and some of them have a small feel. I would probably start by posting your website in the free directories, see how that goes and then think about expanding to some of the directories that charge a fee.
Here is list of some free directories:
Concierge Directory (www.conciergedirectory.org)
Merchant Circle (www.MerchantCircle.com)
Yellow Page (www.YellowPages.com)
HotFrog.com (www.HotFrog.com)
A quick google search, will enable you to find more. Good luck in marketing your business.
About the Author: Neil Hernandez is the General Manager of www. CrossTownConcierge.com, a personal assistant and concierge company based out of Winnetka, IL. He can be reached at HernandezNeil@gmail.com.
Making a website is a good start to market your business, but it is just a start. So what is the next step someone after the concierge website is put up? I think the best way to answer this question is to look at a concept introduced in basic Marketing 101, that is a concept called Target Marketing. To best demonstrate Target Marketing, I'll share with you a story often said by Dan Kennedy, author of the classic direct marketing book called The Ultimate Marketing Plan. In the book, Kennedy talks about a client who owns a carpet cleaning business. This client was frustrated because all of the direct marketing pieces he sent out resulted in dismal response rates. So the first question that Kennedy asked him was who are you mailing to? The client said that he just sent out direct marketing pieces to everyone in the surrounding neighborhood of his business. Then, Kennedy asked him how he decided to mail to that demographic.
"I don't know, I just picked the areas closest to my office," said the client.
Kennedy then asked him if he had you ever drove around the areas closest to the office? The client said that he hadn't. So they drove around the neighborhoods surrounding the office. It was an area filled with mainly apartments and condos - probably about 75% of the neighborhood in his market were tenants who rented. Plus after the quick drive, they both noticed that outside exteriors of houses needed painting and lots of yards needed maintenance. How could a area filled with this kind of demographic, need carpet cleaning services when they could hardly maintain their exteriors? The client agreed. So he changed his direct marketing efforts to better looking neighborhoods. The results were amazing. His direct marketing responses increased from 1/4 of 1% response rate from his old market area to a 2.25% response rate after he changed his target market to a different neighborhood. All of it just by changing the target market.
Likewise, when a concierge business puts up a website. All she is doing is putting up her website up in a web of 100 million other websites, targeting nobody, and maybe wishing somebody finds her website on a search engine.
There are lots of ways to get more hits on your website and to go completely into that is beyond the scope of this article. But one great start is to target your market. Remember, before the web, people picked up the Yellow Pages to find a listing they were looking for. Well, nowadays, people search the web to find what they are looking for. So what you want to do is put your website in a position so if a customer in your area is looking for a personal assistant or concierge, you want your business to pop up in their search.
A lot of people look for concierge company through a directory. What is a directory? A directory is just like the Yellow Pages print edition of the past, except now it's on the web. There is no one standard directory that everybody uses for concierge. So the plan is to put your concierge business in all the likely directories people use. Many of the directories are free and some of them have a small feel. I would probably start by posting your website in the free directories, see how that goes and then think about expanding to some of the directories that charge a fee.
Here is list of some free directories:
Concierge Directory (www.conciergedirectory.org)
Merchant Circle (www.MerchantCircle.com)
Yellow Page (www.YellowPages.com)
HotFrog.com (www.HotFrog.com)
A quick google search, will enable you to find more. Good luck in marketing your business.
About the Author: Neil Hernandez is the General Manager of www. CrossTownConcierge.com, a personal assistant and concierge company based out of Winnetka, IL. He can be reached at HernandezNeil@gmail.com.Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Great Personal Assistant Blog
I know that I am supposed to be promoting my own blog but sometimes, I stumble upon material that is so good that it is worth mentioning. In this case I found some great material from another blog called Personal Assistant Resources.
A couple blog posts of note:
How to find clients for your personal assistant business.
- The low cost way to find clients, who doesn't want to generate more business.
Build your personal assistant network of resources
- Every successful business needs to develop a team. This post shows you how.
35 ways to market your concierge business
More low cost but effective ways to market your business
What appeals to me above all the above articles is that they all advocate a low cost, effective, yet very meaningful way to market your business. Not one way will strike gold, but a combination of all of them - done right - will eventually pay off.
A couple blog posts of note:
How to find clients for your personal assistant business.
- The low cost way to find clients, who doesn't want to generate more business.
Build your personal assistant network of resources
- Every successful business needs to develop a team. This post shows you how.
35 ways to market your concierge business
More low cost but effective ways to market your business
What appeals to me above all the above articles is that they all advocate a low cost, effective, yet very meaningful way to market your business. Not one way will strike gold, but a combination of all of them - done right - will eventually pay off.
Monday, July 13, 2009
Cross Town Concierge now listed on Hot Frog.com
Cross Town Concierge is now listed on HotFrog.com one of the USA's largest online business directories. See our listing at : http://www.hotfrog.com/Companies/Cross-Town-Concierge
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Welcome
Welcome to the official Blog of Cross Town Concierge. Cross Town Concierge is a personal assistant and concierge company.We specialize in serving the southwest suburbs and north shore of Chicago because we have offices in Bolingbrook, IL and Winnetka, IL. Check out our website at www.crosstownconcierge.com.
Keep an eye out on this blog for the lastest news and information on Cross Town Concierge. We also plan on writing regular blog posts Concierge related topics.
Enjoy!
- Neil Hernandez
Winnetka, IL
July 12, 2009
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